A pizza cutter-toting lunatic posed as an FBI agent in a bizarre, botched bid to spring Luigi Mangione out of his notorious Brooklyn jail, federal prosecutors said Thursday.
Minnesota native Mark Anderson, 36, approached the intake area at the Metropolitan Detention Center just before 7 p.m. Wednesday night, according to court records and law enforcement sources.
Anderson — a Bronx pizzeria worker — allegedly made the head-scratching claim that he had an order “signed by a judge” to free the accused cold-blooded killer, who is being held without bail.
Mark Anthony Anderson allegedly impersonated an FBI agent in attempt to free Luigi Mangione from the MDC in Brooklyn. Facebook/Mark AndersonWhen asked to show his credentials, Anderson allegedly took out a Mankato, Minn. driver’s license, and said that he had weapons in his bag.
Staff guarding the intake area then searched the bag and found a BBQ fork and a “round steel blade” that resembled a pizza cutter inside, court papers said.
After throwing a stack of papers at Bureau of Prisons staffers, Anderson was promptly arrested and charged with impersonating an FBI agent. The papers were related to lawsuits Anderson planned to file against the Justice Department, court papers say.
Anderson had moved to the Big Apple for a job opportunity that fell through, and had recently been working at a Bronx pizza parlor, according to a law enforcement source. What pizza eatery he worked at was not immediately clear.
The defendant, Mark Anderson from Mankato, Minnesota, was caught with a pizza-cutter-shaped object and a BBQ fork. U.S. District Court – Eastern District of New YorkHe was held without bail at his first court appearance in the case Thursday afternoon — meaning he’ll soon be joining Mangione at the very complex he tried to spring him out of.
Anderson appeared relaxed during the Brooklyn federal court hearing, flashing spectators the “peace” sign on his way into the room.
His court-appointed lawyer, Michael Weil, said the accused Mangione-loving maniac was mentally ill.
He argued in vain for him to be released and allowed to check into a hospital.
“Mr. Anderson obviously needs some sort of treatment,” Weil told the court.
“It doesn’t seem like this was a serious attempt to spring a federal inmate,” the attorney said. “He didn’t have a badge. He didn’t have an FBI issued weapon.”
Magistrate Judge Taryn Merkl ordered that Anderson be jailed, calling him a flight risk and citing his several arrests in the Bronx in recent months involving allegedly illegally carrying weapons.
A lunatic Luigi Mangione fan allegedly posed as an FBI agent in a botched attempt to break the accused CEO killer out of jail. CURTIS MEANS/POOL/EPA/ShutterstockAnderson had made several unhinged screeds on his public Facebook page in the months leading up to his arrest, including one post in which he wrote that “terror cells” were monitoring his page, and claimed to be “assisting” ICE agents in making busts.
The wacky alleged episode at the jail unfolded days before Mangione, 27, was set to appear on Friday in Manhattan federal court for a pre-trial conference in his headline-grabbing case.
The University of Pennsylvania graduate is charged with executing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Midtown sidewalk on Dec. 4, 2024, outside the healthcare giant’s annual investor conference.
Mangione had written in his notebook about his desire to “wack” Thompson in a targeted hit inspired by what he called UnitedHealthcare’s “parasitic” practice of denying claims, according to prosecutors.
He has pleaded not guilty.
